Praying for the Nations

I really want to see every nation, tribe, people and language praise Jesus.

I think about it all the time. Wouldn’t that be such wonderful worship of our Savior? Can you imagine the splendor of that diverse praise? Yet, every day I am deeply burdened by the fact that this is not yet a reality. Often my mind wanders to the lostness of the world and just breaks for it. I feel helpless with it. The Joshua Project tells of 3 billion people who are currently unreached and without access to the Gospel. Wycliff explains that 1,900 of the world’s 7,000 languages are still waiting for Bible translation to BEGIN. Let’s be honest – those statistics seem overwhelming. How can we deal with the fact that on average 16,000 people died today who had never heard the gospel?

How Can This Be Ok?

1 – We can trust that God knows what He is doing. Psalm 33.4 says, “For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness.” He is faithful to accomplish His promises. His character is trustworthy and despite the limited view we have – we can trust He knows best.

2 – God cares about the lost more than I can ever understand or even fathom. He not only created every person but also sent His Son to die that they might have life in Him. God sees every face of every lost person. He is infinitely worthy of praise from all people and He already has a plan in place to reach them – and here is the crazy part… It involves YOU!

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Philippians 4.6

“Prayer—though it is often draining, even an agony—is in the long term the greatest source of power that is possible.” Tim Keller in his book Prayer

Your Role

God has given us in prayer the ability to impact things on earth. We can trust that prayer is powerful and effective. Prayer along with Scripture fuel our desires for things that God cares about like the nations coming to know Him. Our burden for the unreached, fueled by prayer, should drive us to prayer. You can impact the nations for Jesus from the exact location you are reading this blog. We should be regularly crying out to God for Him to do a mighty work among every nation, tribe, people and language.

Your Responsibility

Since we are the vehicle that God uses to reach the nations and because of the atoning work of Jesus, which has given access us to the throne of God, we have a RESPONSIBILITY to pray for the nations. God chose to use us as agents of change in the world and has given us the power of prayer which catalyzes change. Therefore we must pray for change among the peoples of the world. Regardless of where we are or what we feel our role in global missions is, we should carry a burden to pray for the lostness of the world.

Prayer Guide

It can be difficult to know how to pray for such a big thing. We’ve designed a framework that might be helpful for you during your prayer time. It’s constructed of 6 layers of prayer. These can easily be cycled through during a week or prayed through one after the other.

World – Pray for the world as a whole. Lift up challenges the world faces together. Ask that God would save the 3 billion unreached people. Pray that human trafficking would end. Lift up the poorest of the poor across the planet.

Regions – Either geographical or religious regions, pray that God would meet regional needs. Reading the news to discover these issues can be helpful. Plead for peace in the Middle East. Cry out that the Hindu world would awaken to the reality of Christ. Pray that the wealthy church of North America would fund efforts focused on the unreached.

Countries – Stand with specific countries facing all varieties of issues. Pray for stability and peace in Nigeria. Ask that God would provide for the persecuted church in Iraq. Plead for an end to sex trafficking in Cambodia. Try reading world news with the intention of praying for countries.

People Groups – Petition God to save unreached people groups. Pray that the Baliaga, Highland Bali of Indonesia, a people group residing in several remote villages on the island of Bali would soon come to know the LORD. Lift up the Kamboh, Muslim of Pakistan which may have ZERO known believers out of 824,000 people. Joshua Project is a great resource for this information.

Missionaries – Plead that Jesus would strengthen the hands of missionaries and raise up more laborers for His harvest. Here is a list of some things you could pray for missionaries about. Pursue relationships with missionaries to find their specific requests. Start with your church and see if there are missionaries who send updates you could receive. If not, reach out to missionary organizations asking to be connected to a global worker you can pray for.

Specific People – Cry out to God for people by name. There are billions of people around the world who have NEVER been prayed for by name. Find out names or aliases for security of specific people the missionaries you know are working with. Get to know an international person in your city – get to know them and pray for them along with any family that might still live in their home country. Try to find someone on social media from an unreached country and plead for them to know Jesus as their Savior.

Don’t feel overwhelmed by the global need. Simply trust God and diligently pray for the things of God. This is how He has planned to redeem His people.